Chapter 5: The Nite Shift: Part 3: The Last Straw on the Pony's Back
Golddusk only wanted one thing after the night he'd had. Sleep. And copious amounts of it. He'd not only had to redo all of the decorations in the building, (thank Luna that Twilight knew some color-changing spells, amongst other things,) but it also involved rearranging a lot of decorations that could not simply be pallet-swapped. Thus, his wings got a great workout that night as he ran and flew about the Main Hall taking down and replacing decorations. The hall now sported dark and light blue banners, streamers, and subtle star-themed decorations. Golddusk had been insistent that the location of the Moonrise ceremony make Luna feel welcomed and celebrated.
Just convincing all of the ponies that had been working on the decorations in the first place had been an hour's work. He was properly exhausted. And apparently, so were his comrades, as they were right and properly asleep by the time he'd gotten there. He spent no time in getting to bed. Taking a small glimpse at the moon through the window above his bed, he let himself drift off to sleep.
The next thing he was aware, he was waking up in his own bed, staring at the same moon. In fact, it was in pretty much the same position it had been when he'd fallen asleep. Two thoughts occurred to him:, one, that he'd slept pretty much 24 hours and the moon had come full circle, which he dismissed almost immediately, as Octavia would have woken him well before then. He'd made the mistake of sleeping in before, and hadn't wanted to repeat the experience.
The second thought that occurred to him was that he'd only been asleep for minutes, if only seconds. Realizing this, he looked around for whatever had woken him up. Which led to the discovery of several ponies in his room and surrounding the building.
"Rrrr," he growled to himself. "If they'd objected to the new decoration scheme this vehemently, they should have said something much earlier." Taking his dear sweet time getting out from under the covers, he raised his head to look the 'lead' pony in the eyes. A rather mature-looking tan-coated mare with glasses.
"I am the Mayor of Ponyville," she announced herself, "And I demand an explanation for this atrocity!"
Blink. Blink. "Atrocity? The decorations aren't that bad, are they?" he asked sleepily, his eyelids already starting to droop.
The Mayor did a double take.. "Wha-no! The decorations are fine! But we seriously need to discuss-"
"Decorations were all I was responsible for. If it's something else, wake one of the others," he explained hal-feartedly, making to climb back under the covers.
"We're already awake, Gold," said a rather unhappy-sounding Octavia muttered from beneath her sheets. "What else could you want, anyway?" she asked gruffly, poking her head out from her blankets to stare drowsily at the group of ponies in the room. "It's not like Stephen got anywhere near the village during practice," she mused. "Something I wish would have offered at least some kind of assistance to his skill," she added, shuddering.
"How can you not know by now?" one of the ponies in the group asked, rather aggrieved. "It's sitting right there in the sky!"
Golddusk glanced lazily back at the window. Not much had changed in the 30 seconds he'd since looked. "Ok, I see the stars and moon and night sky. That's what happens when you wake me up forty seconds after I fall asleep!" he all but barked.
The Mayor blinked at him. "You mean... you mean you really don't know?"
"How could I? Or any of us, for that matter? They were well asleep by the time I got back, and the last thing I did before going to bed was lock up the Main Hall. So unless you were waiting to ambush us for something ridiculously outrageous, I suggest you let us get back to bed," he grumbled. He didn't even blink at the varying expressions of surprise and indignation amongst the group that had invaded their bedroom.
"Well, first off," the Mayor explained, "You haven't been asleep forty seconds."
"You mean you didn't even give us that long to sleep?" Artimare growled from under the covers. Golddusk wondered whether or not Kwan Do was also asleep, or merely ignoring them all.
"It's not that," the pony that had spoken up earlier, a yellow-coated filly with blue and purple hair, "You've been asleep for hours. It's noon," she told them.
Golddusk froze halfway under the blanket, and turned his head slowly; the covers slid slowly to the floor as he moved. "What did you say? It's noon?"
The rest of his group had snapped to attention as well. "You mean the sun hasn't risen?"
The filly shook her head. "Nor has the moon moved in hours."
"Which means," Artimare mused aloud, "That either one or both of the royal sisters are in some way incapable of performing their tasks." Octavia leaped out of bed, alert and looking all the more concerned, as Artimare and Kwan Do followed suit, yet Gold hadn't moved.
The Mayor looked rather abashed. "I-I'm sorry. I assumed that, it still being moonrise even in the middle of the day, that Luna had... and you are members of her court, so I..."
Golddusk finished her sentence for her, rather quietly. "You assumed she was responsible, right? Even after all she has done to atone for allowing Nightmare Moon surface? How can you assume so much?"
The group that had invaded their room had started to empty out, leaving the Mayor and the other pony who'd spoken earlier. "We-I... I'm so sorry. I'd thought-"
"Stop," Golddusk told her, his voice still as quiet, but much more gentle. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have laid so much guilt on you. Of course that's the assumption you'd make. You don't have any evidence to the contrary. And to be honest, neither do we. But I know the Princess. Not as well as I'd like, but I have the utmost faith in her. As I'm sure you do Celestia, I don't believe for a second that she would make such a mistake again. Especially with how excited she's become over the festival. I can't imagine her wanting to sabotage herself so much, anyway."
The rest of the room stared quietly at him, then Octavia spoke up. "You're going to have to forgive him. He has kind of a soft spot for Princess Luna, and he's not really used to being accused of anything, But more importantly, we need to get back to the castle. Since it doesn't look like it's going to get brighter anytime soon," she mused, staring out the window," my guess is that leaving now would be the best option. I know we haven't had a full days'-er-night's sleep," she continued," but it's not like we can sit on our laurels on this one. Especially since our job is to make sure the Winter Moon Festival goes off without a hitch, it's kind of hard to make that guarantee if the moon's in the sky before it even starts."
"Not to mention the agricultural, social, and environmental implications of not having a sun," Kwan Do pointed out.
Octavia nodded sheepishly. "Yeah, those, too."
The mayor glanced over to the other filly. "Bon-bon, please go fetch Twilight, and have her write a letter to the castle, to let them know these ponies are returning. And see if she can't get any information from whoever's taken over, if that's the case."
Bon-Bon nodded. "Yes, ma'am!" she agreed, galloping off. The mayor turned back to the group. "I'll understand if you don't want to say goodbye to anypony, and it's not like you'll never see us again, but do try to keep us updated."
Octavia nodded. "I'll try to find a way to send Twilight letters on whatever we find out."
IOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOI
Even before the others had returned to the castle, however, things amongst the royal courts were in complete turbulence. Guards had been flying back and forth since what would have been sunrise, the servants and cooks and other non-militia ponies had been either sent home or kept in their quarters while things were sorted out, and nopony, absolutely nopony, had seen Her Highness Princess Celestia.
And Luna was about to lose her mind over the entire situation. After more than a few hours of interrogation both on her part, and having to answer questions herself from some rather critical high-ranking captains, she'd all but reached her limit. Especially since there seemed to be rather quite a few ponies in Canterlot who would still cast a suspecting eye on her, even as she gave orders for teams to go out in droves to look for her sister, and trying to find some way to raise the sun and set the moon in her dear sister's stead.
She'd decided to try and speak to some of the night court that hadn't been assigned any tasks to build up some more ponypower and keep everything moving normally. Amongst everything else, she did have one other idea for tracking her sister and resolving the issue somewhat peacefully, but there was one catch: nopony took the idea seriously but at all.
And they were quickly running out of ideas. They'd sent word to every province in Equestria, every town, and Celestia hadn't turned up anywhere. Luna had even gone so far as to search the old castle of the Pony Sisters for clues, or to see if some remnant of Nightmare Moon had survived long enough to try and retake the sky, but she'd found nothing. Not even Celestia's personal guard had a clue as to where she'd gone, and they were there day and night. Entire gaps of memory had been stripped from their minds, it seemed.
At this point in time, she'd taken a moment to do the only thing she hadn't had time for since the catastrophe had kicked off early this morning: cry. Curled up on her sister's pillow, and weeping silently, she'd locked herself away from the rest of the castle, only for a moment, to weep and give herself a chance to recompose herself. It was at that point that she was aware of Golddusk and his team returning. To be honest, however, the first thing she was aware of was a large crash at her door as somepony tried to barrel through it. She launched to her feet, about ready to counterattack whoever had tried to break in. "Who's there?" she demanded, her voice shaky from tears. "A-an-announce yourself!" There was a moment of silence, then she heard a voice from the other side of the entry.
"Dammit, dammit, dammit, that hurt..." muttered a male voice, rather disgruntled and obviously in pain.
"Well, of course it did, you idiot. The door is locked," said a rather snarky female. "I'm guessing the best idea would be to knock."
"Oh...uh...right," the male voice muttered. Shortly followed by a rather sheepish-sounding knock, if there was such a thing. "Um... Princess?" said the same male voice, which now sounded rather familiar. "Um, can we come in? It's Golddusk. We came as soon as we heard what was going on... I mean... we were asleep when the sun... oh, that's not..."
Luna had cautiously approached the door as the two had started talking, and was simply standing on the other side, listening to Golddusk stumble over his words. It was about the end of his rant when she clicked the door unlocked and let it slide open. The black pegasus just kind of peeked in cautiously as Luna backed away from the door.
Once the entry was completely open, Gold slowly trotted into the room, giving the Princess a cautious look. "Are you... I mean, I'd imagine you're not ok, but how're... I mean, what can we do?" he kept tripping over his sentences, like he was trying to defuse a bomb.
Luna felt a pang of guilt, in realizing that he may also believe what others suspected: that it was her fault her sister had disappeared. "So... you too, believe it's my fault? Is that why you're so nervous? That I might do something to you, too?" she felt tears well in her eyes as she realized they didn't have any reason to believe otherwise.
So of course it came as a slight surprise when Golddusk protested almost exuberantly. "What? No, no no no no no no! Not a chance in Canterlot! Oh, my god, did you think... no, no way!" he rambled, waving his hooves frantically. Luna stared at him, rather taken aback. She was almost unaware that she was still crying.. "Ok, I know I'm totally not supposed to do this," Golddusk started, "but-" he stopped talking, and hesitated for just a second, before reaching forward and wrapping the younger Princess in a large hug. "I'm so sorry. I don't ever want you to think that we'd believe for a second you could do such a thing."
The Princess of the Moon was not only taken aback much farther than she was used to, but also deeply moved. It wasn't until she was crying into his shoulder that she realized she had a great deal more tears to let stayed like that for a while, as Octavia and, Luna noticed, taking a glance over Gold's shoulder, Artimare and Kwan Do stood aside, somewhat uncomfortable, or, in the older filly's case, indifferent. She looked almost like she was bored.
Luna took a moment after to compose herself, and looked to the group that had arrived. Then a thought occurred to her. "You asked me when you came in if there was anything you could do, right? Well, I may have a task for you." The excited expression on Gold's face surprised her, but she kept going. He didn't show any signs of wanting to interrupt her, either. "Well, there's one other course of action outside of what's already been implemented that I can think of," she explained, trying to keep to the same royal visage and presence her sister was so known for. It helped her focus, at least. "There's an old legend, parallel to the Elements of Harmony, that I've been doing some research on since I returned from... well, since I came back. I'm not entirely sure the best way to explain it, as I've been researching mostly the arcane implications and traditional methods of invocation-" she paused, as Golddusk's eyebrows did a kind of confused-still-trying-to-look-like-he-knew-what-was-going-on expression. She stopped for a second, and decided that talking like her sister wasn't helping.
She decided to start again. "Ok, nopony else in the castle believes me on this, but I think, and so did my sister, that our parents left us both a set of Elements. The Elements of Harmony were originally a power that our mother, Queen Nebula, had created, to give Celestia the power she needed to raise the sun. I don't remember, and neither does she, but we think my father, King Stardust, also left me a similar power. But neither of us can ever remember me using it. Everypony I talk to insists that it must have been Celestia in the first place who rose the moon for me, but I know that's not how our family's powers work. But nopony who uses magic believes that, because I can't prove it to them."
"So I'm guessing nopony is exactly lining up to help you look for this power?" Artimare reasoned.
Luna nodded. "Exactly. I don't even know what they're supposed to be called, let alone what they consist of, how to find them, or what... or more likely, who, they're attributed to. And there's no way I can go off and find them on my own without arousing more suspicion or abandoning a great deal of responsibility. And seeing as how you guys don't exactly have a great deal of responsibility..." she trailed off, trying not to be obtrusive or strike some kind of nerve.
Artimare snorted amusedly. "To be honest I kind of like how lax our 'jobs' are. But yes, it's not like we can't take on something else to do. After all, we were able to pretty much drop everything and go to work in Ponyville. So what exactly do you want us to do?"
The Princess nodded appreciatively as the rest of the group looked ready to follow whatever orders she gave them. That kind of loyalty seemed to bolster her, and was a refreshing change of pace. "Ok, there's a pony in Ponyville called Twilight Sparkle, whom I know you've spoken to," she explained, then paused. Octavia and Artimare looked slightly exasperated, and Gold looked slightly excited.
"Yes, we've met her," Octavia muttered, glancing sideways at the black pegasus. Had she not noticed the undertone of slight exhaustion in her voice, she would have assumed something akin to jealousy.
"Well, she seems to have a penchant for research and recognizing signs that not many other ponies pick up on. She's part of the reason the Elements of Harmony were able to reform. She's the only one I can think of who would have anything close to an answer about it. But I can't go talk to her, and it's not like anypony else is exactly chomping at the bit to go for me. Do you think you could go back to Ponyville, under this new mission for me?" she asked tentatively.
She got her answer almost immediately. Kwan, Artimare and Octavia all bowed their affirmation, and Gold looked ready to jump out the window and fly straight back to the small town right freaking yesterday. Octavia had to lay a hoof on his shoulder to remind him that bowing was customary at this point, a gesture which he promptly complied to by all but slamming his face on the floor.
"Yes, of course we will, Lu-I mean, Your Higness, er Princess-" Golddusk stammered, seemingly much happier than she thought the occasion called for.
"Well-yes. That's good," she said, recovering herself. This meeting, she thought to herself, is NOT something I could have prepared myself for. "There is one other thing. I expect, should you get any answers from Twilight, that you're not going to be coming back here until you've found what your looking for. Especially since we don't have a great deal of time. So if there's anypony else you can think to take with you, I'd suggest having more than just four of you. With everything that Twilight's group had put in front of them when they were trying to defeat..." she drifted off again, but the rest of the group nodded, understanding her difficulty in talking about it. "Let's just say having more ponies wouldn't hurt. Just make sure they're people you can trust to make the entire journey with you."
Her subjects seemed to agree with this notion, and they said their goodbyes, as the four set out to start in on their next task. She noticed, however, that one pony in particular hung back, waiting to speak to her only after everyone else had left.
"Yes, Octavia?" Luna asked, somewhat hesitantly. The musician looked slightly more serious than she had when she showed up. "Is.. is something wrong?"
The grey filly shook her head. "Not exactly, I just thought... well, we need to talk."
The Moon Princess nodded. She recognized an attempt at diplomacy when she saw it. "Of course. About what?"
"Well," Octavia started, seemingly hesitant herself. "To be honest... Golddusk."
Luna raised an eyebrow at that. "Really? I thought-"
"Yes, I'd figured," Octavia answered, after Luna decided to let the sentence drop. "But everything else you've talked about I don't have any reason to question. And I'm not questioning anything about you and Golddusk, on any level," she added hastily, "but there's something you need to know." She gave a rather deep sigh, and pressed on. "Of all the ponies I've met since working at the castle, even before you returned, I've never met anyone as loyal to you as him. I mean, I haven't met everypony in Canterlot or anywhere else, obviously, and even then I haven't talked to all of the night shift, but I'm sure they'd be hard pressed to show you more loyalty and trust, and dare I say... faith, in you, than he has. It's kind of hard to explain, but I do have a point here," she added, struggling to find the right words. "Well, let me put it this way. Do you know what he did every night since I've met him, and likely every night before that, even before you came back?"
Luna shook her head. "Not really. I guess I'm not entirely sure what his job is here."
Octavia chuckled, "I don't think any of us are. He seems to do a wide variety of things, like assisting in guard duty and cleaning. But without fail, at least for an hour or two every night, he just stands there and watches the moon. I have no idea what he's thinking, but he does it every night. Even last night, as we were working, I saw him take at least a few minutes at a time to stop and stare at the sky. I asked him once why he did it, and you know what he told me?"
Again, Luna shook her head.
"Well, after I shook his shoulder a good two or three times to get his attention, then asked him again," she explained with a hint of sarcasm. Luna had to chuckle at that, and Octavia joined in. "After all that, he told me a story. About how there used to be a Princess that rose and set the moon every night, and how lonely she'd become." Octavia looked rather serious, and Luna thought she could guess full well where this was going. "How she'd become so lonely that she tried to make it night time all the time, so that at least somepony would be with her while the moon rose, so that somepony could see all of the beauty of night and the moon and stars that she brought them every night. And how her hope for attention, and somepony to talk to, had done nothing more than achieve her total isolation in the moon for a thousand years."
Luna had started to tear up again at the story, but Octavia continued. "And then, after you came back, I'd never seen him happier. He was completely excited that you'd finally have an opportunity to have all of the friends and companionship you'd ever wanted. But even after you'd returned, he noticed, you were still alone. Even with the night shift going, there wasn't anypony around for you to talk to. You were always so busy rising and setting the moon and diving into your work whilst everypony slept. So, he told me, he'd keep watching the moon. Because he thought that there should always at least be one pony who watched what you brought to this land each and every night, and rejoice in it."
Luna looked almost ready to cry again, but held her composure. "So, where are you going with this?" she asked, a little more gruffly than she would have liked.
"My point is, he's gotten it into his head that you should never, ever, be lonely again. He's all but devoted himself to you, and I'm almost completely sure he's done that, too. His isn't any kind of loyalty you could earn or buy under any normal means. He's under the impression that the only way to make sure you are never lonely again is to show you that there is somepony out there who would give there all for you. When you asked him to be your liaison to Ponyville, for whatever reason, I've never seen him happier. It was as if a light had switched on in his head. Like you finally saw that you weren't alone in the world anymore, and he's been walking on clouds ever since. And you asking him to go on a private mission for you? You saw how excited he was. But my point is this, however long it took to get here: He's willing to do anything for you, and I'm pretty sure that isn't a limit you could test till it breaks. And I'm not under any assumptions that that's what you're doing," she added, seeing the look on Luna's face.
Octavia paused for a second, realizing she'd been speaking all on one breath, almost. "What I'm trying to say is that even though I'm more than sure that there isn't anything you could ask him to do that he'd say no to. I want you to realize that there are things that you shouldn't expect him to do for you, even if he would. The last thing I want is to see him go down because he put his loyalty to you over his own limitations," she finished.
The Princess froze for a moment, both over the realization of what her subject was willing to do for her, and the sheer amount of thought that Octavia had put into what she was asking.
"I... I see," she answered, after a few moments. "I think I see exactly where you're coming from. And I don't have any intention of asking him to do something I wouldn't be willing to do myself," she said, nodding to the grey filly, who nodded back, bowed, and started to walk out.
A few paces before the door, however, she paused, and turned back. "Just think about this, though, Your Highness. He can't do everything you can, can he?"